Books To Help You Understand The Diet

IC Chef Cookbook by Jill Osborne MA

(New in 2015) The IC Chef Cookbook features more than 260 recipes submitted by IC patients over the past ten years to our on-line cookbook. Julie Beyer RD, author of the Confident Choices: A Cookbook for IC and OAB, contributed the foreward to the book. She wrote “For the past twenty years, Jill Osborne and the thousands of members of the Interstitial Cystitis Network Forum (www.ic-network.com/forum) have shared their journeys with interstitial cystitis, including the recipes you find in this book. This cookbook is a celebration of that wisdom and, more, importantly the empowerment that patients experience when collaborating with each other.”

If you think there are no hot beverages that you can enjoy, you’ll be intrigued by the more than 20 recipes for hot drinks included in the cookbook and, with the warm season approaching, you’ll also find recipes for frozen shakes and creamy drinks, sweet teas, smoothies and veggie drinks. If you’re sick of oatmeal for breakfast, you’ll find some fabulous new recipes perfect for a family brunch. From burgers to pizza, pasta to vegetarian ideas, there are plenty of options that should help you enjoy food again.

The book is more than a cookbook. It’s a primer on the IC diet as well with easy to read sections explaining why food can irritate the bladder, the most irritating foods to avoid. It includes a full list of the 2012 IC Food List along with articles on Fighting Constipation, Fatigue Fighting Foods, Foods and Chemicals and more. We hope that it gives you some great new ideas and fresh flavors to play with. The book is appropriate for patients struggling with bladder and prostate disorders as well as acid sensitivity.

Confident Choices: A Cookbook for IC and OAB by Julie Beyer RD

Confident Choices: A Cookbook for IC and Overactive Bladder is a lovely new diet resource for patients around the world. A perfect complement to her first book Confident Choices: Customizing the IC Diet, Julie uses this new publication to walk the novice patient through essential IC diet basics in a style that is simple, easy to understand and inherently practical. Its a perfect resource for patients who are afraid to eat for fear of causing an IC flare. The section on rescue menus alone will be greatly appreciated by patients currently struggling with a sensitive bladder.

Yes, Virginia, you can eat when you have IC but you must choose your foods carefully. With a positive and encouraging tone and style, Julie reminds her readers about key nutrition basics and offers short, concise discussions. She offers an excellent list of IC friendly food substitutions. For example, pear or blueberry juice can be used in place of lemon juice or vinegar in many recipes. She includes a step by step guide on how to do an elimination diet to determine which, if any, foods you are sensitive to. She offers a wide variety of recipes for breakfast, snacks and appetizers, soups, salads, breads, main dishes, vegetables, pasta, desserts, candies and beverages.

One new and great idea she includes is a printable shopping list of IC friendly foods that patients can take to the grocery store to make good, informed decisions about their diet.

Confident Choices: Customizing the IC Diet (2nd Ed) by Julie Beyer RD

Written by a registered dietitian, this book is perfect for patients who aren’t sure what to eat or who are worried about eating a balanced diet. It offers fifteen chapters, including flare foods, discovering your trigger foods, planning meals, ideas for breakfast, lunch and dinner, some IC friendly recipes, dietary supplements and IC diet success stories.

A Taste of the Good Life: A Cookbook for an IC Diet by Bev Laumann

The first diet book created for patients struggling with IC, it is still one of our most popular & practical books! Author Bev Laumann provides an extensive, thoroughly researched resource for patients seeking information on diet and nutrition. In addition to covering the IC diet, Bev offers tips and suggestions on how to make low acid coffees, find low acid wines, the vulvodynia oxalate diet and much more! She also includes dozens of fabulous bladder friendly recipes to help you expand your diet. Even the appendices are chock full of useful information, particularly the one that discusses vitamins and lists all the foods that you can eat to increase your vitamin intake.
This book is perfect for foodies and patients who love to cook!

2012 Guide to the IC Diet

The 2012 Guide to the IC Diet offers a short yet concise review of the IC diet, ideal for patients who don’t have access to the web and/or prefer to read off line. You’ll find two food lists, including the first alphabetized list of more than 250 foods each broken down into “friendly,” “try it” and “caution” categories.

We share detailed information not just on what you shouldn’t eat, but also what you can eat and should enjoy daily! Patient success stories are shared and the three authors of the IC Cookbooks each offer their own insights!

The Happy Bladder Cookbook by Mia Eliot

Written in 2010 by IC patient Mia Eliot, the Happy Bladder Cookbook offers 75+ flavorful and creative recipes that are compliant with the 2009 IC/PBS Diet Food List. If you’re looking new fresh flavors, tastes and ideas to liven up your diet, this is a lovely addition to your IC cookbooks.

At 24 years of age, Mia has had her share of health challenges, including a diagnosis of IC in 2008. While she was struggling with her new diagnosis and losing her job, Mia went back to her old passion: cooking. This cookbook shares some of her favorite recipes adapted to the IC friendly diet and represents her desire to share her love of food with patients who often feel food deprived. The fact is that she is extremely positive and encouraging. The book is available via pdf and now due to populaity a printed version is available. Enjoy!

IC Friendly Fit & Fresh by Mia Eliot

IC patient Mia Elliot does it again with the third of her cookbook series, this one providing tasty, flavorful IC friendly recipes that are also kind to our waistline. Seventy five new recipes, each under 500 calories! Available in print and as a pdf file.

The Happy Bladder Christmas Cookbook by Mia Eliot

New for the Holiday Season, IC patient Mia Eliot has written a new holiday cookbook offering 75+ flavorful and creative recipes for breakfast pastries, candies, cookies, cakes, pies and much more! These will liven up your holiday desserts yet are compliant with the 2009 IC/PBS Diet Food List. If you’re looking some wonderful new recipes, this is a lovely addition to your IC cookbooks. Available as a pdf file for instant download

Interstitial Cystitis Network

… we have a small favour to ask. More people are reading the IC Network than ever but advertising revenues across health media websites are falling fast. We haven’t put up a paywall – we want to keep our web site and support services as open as we can. The IC Network's independent journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it because we want to help you find relief.

If everyone who reads our reporting, who likes it, helps to support it, our future would be much more secure. For as little as $25, you can support the IC Network – and it only takes a minute. Thank you.

The ICN is a health education company dedicated to IC and chronic pelvic pain syndrome. Rated the top patient website dedicated to IC in peer reviewed studies by Harvard (2011) and the Univ. of London (2013), our goal is to empower, educate and encourage patients and providers!